With the recent release of Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle Earth, Modern has had a pretty big shakeup. While not on the scale of Modern Horizons sets, the LotR release has introduced multiple cards that stand to see consistent modern play or, in the case of The One Ring, banworthy amounts of play. Two Weeks ago we predicted what would see play, but now with multiple challenges and big tournaments like the NRG and LMS Bologna, we can see what is proving itself at the top of the meta. Today, we’ll go over the decks now at the top of the meta and what LotR cards are in them or changes that have occurred in the lists due to this new meta.

Izzet Murktide

Izzet Murktide is the premier tempo/control deck of the format. Using Cheap creatures and the most efficient 1-for-1 spells it looks to keep its opponent off-kilter long enough to eventually kill them. While Murktide doesn’t play any of the New Powerhouse cards it does change its tools to defeat its new opponents. 

Changes

With the introduction of The One Ring Spell Pierce is seeing more play as a 3-4 of instead of more often 2.

In the best performing list from LMS Bologna it has 2 Maindeck Subtlety which gets around the Uncounterable abilities of Cavern of Souls and Delighted Halfling which is very relevant as both Amulet Titan and Yawgmoth are seeing more play since Lotr.

Somewhat unsurprisingly the card that depicts the destruction of The One Ring is now seeing sideboard play as a versatile answer to the card. It can also pick off things like Ragavan, Dragons Rage Channeler, Orcish Bowmasters, and Ignoble Hierarchs.

4-Color Omnath

This deck seriously benefits from the introduction of The One Ring. 4c Omnath looks to use the best removal, creatures, and card advantage to play a long midrange game plan that slowly crushes its opponent. Prismatic Ending, Solitude, Leyline Binding, and Fury can answer any problem and once you have depleted your resources stopping your opponent The One Ring fills your hand right back up. 

Changes

The One Ring has single-handedly brought this deck back to the top of the meta with it top 8ing almost half of the Challenges of the past 2 weeks.

Hammertime

Hammertime looks to kill its opponent as quickly as possible by cheating a Colossus Hammer onto a creature and dealing 10 infect damage in one hit or dealing 20 damage in 2 turns. The deck has a serious ability to grind long games with cards like Esper Sentinel and Puresteel Paladin to draw cards.

Changes

Forge Anew is seeing some play as a 1-of as another card that makes games go longer but can also advance a more aggressive plan with a Hammer. 

Rakdos Scam

Rakdos Scam is a midrange deck that can also play a much more aggressive plan by “Scamming” Evoke elementals to either Double Thoughseize on turn 1 with Grief, Feign Death, and a Black Card or put a 4/4 Doublestrike into play and wipe their board with 2 Fury triggers. The deck has a powerful ability to play a long game with cards like Fable of the Mirror-Breaker and Seasoned Pyromancer. A key issue with the deck until Lord of the Rings was a density of powerful 2 drops as Dauthi Voidwalker is good but only 4 good 2 drops is not enough. Some lists even ran Pioneer Allstar Bloodtithe Harvester.

Changes

Orcish Bowmasters is an amazing 2 drop-seeing play in essentially every new scam list. 2 Bodies and a minimum of 1 ping that can Kill a Ragavan, Dragons Rage Channeler, Teferi, Master of Time, or just hit your opponent means that this deck now has 6-8 powerful 2 drops making sure it using its mana as efficiently as possible.

Cast into the Fire is now also seeing sideboard play as a versatile answer to The One Ring in this deck too. As stated previously it also can pick off things like Ragavan, Dragons Rage Channeler, Orcish Bowmasters, and Ignoble Hierarchs.

Mono-G Tron

Mono Green Tron has risen to the top of the meta once again with the addition of The One Ring. Turns out a deck that seemed a turn too slow for the current meta just needed a card that gave you protection from everything and draws a billion cards! Mono Green Tron wins by assembling the “Tron” lands, a set of 3 Urza’s land that when all together produce 7 mana. It finds these lands with cards like Sylvan Scrying, and Expedition Map as well as keeping the board clear with Oblivion Ring and All is Dust.

Changes

The One Ring as stated above has fixed the issue that Tron previously had in the meta. Previouslt it felt just a turn too slow but now with a colorless card advantage engine that gives you protection from everything such an issue has largely disappeared. It is notable that it only appears as a 3-of in the main to allow Karn to access it as well in the sideboard.

Yawgmoth

Yawgmoth is a combo-midrange deck that uses undying creatures, Yawgmoth and Blood Artist to kill the opponent. Without the Blood Artist, the Yawgmoth player can still effectively pay 1 life to draw a card. The deck ramps quickly with Delighted Halfling, a new Lotr card, Ignoble Hierarch, and Wall of Roots. The deck can find Yawgmoth or other combo pieces very effectively with Eldritch Evolution and Chord of Calling. Grist and Orcish Bowmasters serve a strong supporting role in more midrange games and are tutorable removal spells. I have a lot of writings (here) on the deck if this sparks your interest.

Changes

Delighted Halfling is a new very powerful mana dork with 2(!) toughness which means it can’t be pinged by Bowmasters or Wren and Six. It also has an uncounterable clause for Legendaries which means this dork has effectively taken Birds of Paradise out of competitive play.

Orcish Bowmasters is a very versatile 2 drop that creates 2 bodies and can continuously generate more bodies whenever your opponent draws a card if you sacrifice the army before the trigger resolves.

The One Ring is actually seeing consistent play in Yawgmoth in tournaments. It has won a challenge as well as making the finals or top 8ing others. A deck that tries to ramp out a 4 mana card advantage spell seemingly doesn’t mind having an additional 4 4-mana card advantage spells

While Blood Artist was formerly the better option as it triggers on all creatures, with the introduction of The One Ring a card that can combo-kill through protection from everything has become vital to the decks' success.

Amulet Titan

Amulet Titan is an all-in combo deck that uses Amulet of Vigor in combination with the Ravnica bounce lands to generate absurd amounts of mana and cast a Primeval Titan and win as soon as turn 2. I won’t go into the combo lines as Titan is known as one of the most convoluted combo decks to pilot, but the general idea is that if they get a Titan into play with 1-2 Amulets you are likely dying that turn. 

Changes

Yet again a ramp deck wants to cheat this card into play. Giving you a free turn (and 3 cards) in a combo deck like Amulet Titan (or Yawgmoth) is very powerful. The addition of The One Ring has once again brought upon a new wave of Amulet Titan because as shown through this entire article… The One Ring is a busted magic card.

Living End

Living End looks to abuse cascade to consistently find and cast Living End. Living End essentially swaps the graveyard and battlefield. The deck looks to cycle creatures on turns 1 and 2 to fill the graveyard and then on turn 3 play a Violent Outburst or Shardless Agent to create a very formidable battlefield for very cheap. If the deck isn’t being pressured it can easily just keep filling the graveyard until it can kill its opponent in one fell swoop. It also has very powerful protection in Force of Negation being a free counterspell.

Changes

Oliphaunt, Generous Ent These quite simple additions to Living End allow it to play fewer lands and make the Living Ends more powerful. They are not crazy but small upgrades like this should not be taken for granted. 

Creativity 

Creativity comes in 2 main forms but both are focused on the same primary goal: cheating Archon of Cruelty into play with Indomitable Creativity. Indomitable Creativity seems like a random effect unless you build your deck to have no creatures or artifacts other than Archon. Additionally, Dwarven Mine, with a mana base with only mountains, is a fetchable land that creates creature tokens to target with Creativity. The 5-color build has access to powerful spells such as Teferi, Time Raveler, or Leyline Binding, which is effectively 1 mana most of the time. On the other hand, the Jund build also uses Persist to provide some redundancy. 

Changes

This deck is seeing little change done to it and as such is currently doing worse in the meta. It is a control combo deck and until it finds the correct list of cards for this new meta it will be a fine choice but it won’t be crushing challenges like it was a month or two ago.

Rhinos ( 5-color or Temur )

Rhinos is a deck that, like Creativity, has 2 main versions. The first plays 5-colors to play spells like the previously mentioned Leyline Binding and sometimes even Scion of Draco. The second version plays just blue, red, and green to play Blood Moon. Regardless of the build, Rhinos decks are focused on playing Crashing Footfalls via a cascade trigger from Violent Outburst or Shardless Agent. Cascade allows the Footfalls to be played immediately creating 2 4/4s for only 3 mana. To ensure the cascade will always hit Crashing Footfalls the deck must play only cards with a mana value of 3 or greater. Split cards like Fire // Ice get around this as they can be cast for less than 3 as their mana value is the 2 spells combined.

Changes

This deck is seeing little change done to it and as such is currently doing worse in the meta as well. Notably, because of the restriction on mana cost for the deck its options for spells are limited, which makes making changes for the meta even harder than normal.